Crown of Orphans
by danceswithronin
Summary: Prince Alistair Theirin and the Grey Warden Commander Cousland face the terrors of the darkspawn horde side by side, one last time. But even should they win the day, what will become of them when the battle is over? (Alistair/Female Cousland, Battle of Denerim, Royal Wedding)
1. Chapter 1

They are legion.

For what seems like days, we fight them, until our muscles scream with exhaustion and our bones are bruised from the jarring impact of sword and shield and mace. We fight them until their blood runs black and stinging and noxious into our eyes, blinding us to the battlefield. Alistair and I with our backs together, each of us facing the unholy ones in a jeering, shrieking half moon before our upraised blades.

I didn't want him to be here. I couldn't stop thinking it, no matter how hard I tried. From the moment we set out across the city, the words "You are our king, you will remain behind," danced behind my lips, and I willed myself to say them, no matter how much he might hate me for it. The moment I saw Cailan's armor on him, made whole and bent back into its proper shape by dwarven smiths after the ogre crushed it into so many killing shards of gilded plate steel, it seemed to me a bad omen – the endless night of Ostagar all over again. Above the breastplate, once glittering and now splattered with darkspawn gore, I can only see his dead brother's face. His, and all the rest.

I didn't want him to be here, standing before the archdemon itself at my side. As if he would have willingly stood down. But I could have forced it. A king he might be, but I am the Warden Commander of Ferelden, and no matter what crown he wears, he is a Warden first and a king second. Even if he was not, the Grey Wardens recognize the command of no king unless it is in their best interest to do so. It was the same for every Commander who bore the armor before me, and I am no different than them.

I could have ordered him to stay behind, and he would have obeyed my command. Because in his heart, Alistair will always be a follower – go along to get along, he always says. And in most things he is right.

But I did not order him then, and I cannot order his retreat now, at the height of danger to our people; in my heart, I know if Alistair truly means to lead this nation, he must prove it to himself before he proves it to the rest of us.

Watching him fight the horde, so accustomed to having him at my side the tandem nature of our strikes is like breathing, like muscle memory, I cannot bear to imagine what I will do if he falls in this battle, if in the end I am the one left standing alone. After all of the blood I have waded through to get to this point, after listening to his soft snores by crackling campfire light, after listening to him curse at Leliana over Wicked Grace or rankle Wynn with his easy jokes… no Maker, no manner of gods or Paragons could be so monstrously cruel.

A Hurlock throws itself at me, screeching a carrion-laced war cry, and I jerk back out of reach without thinking twice. But before I can counterstrike, Maric's sword is gleaming through the air like a gilded magic trick and a black spout of blood gushes where the darkspawn's head had been half a second before. The head went tumbling to the Denerim cobblestones, its razor-toothed maw still biting reflexively, like the head of a viper chopped off by a farmer's scythe. Dead, but still dangerous. Like the Wardens themselves. A lot has changed in a year – we are no longer the uncertain recruits we were before. We have been reforged by tragedy.

"You owe me for that one," Alistair says, breathless, as I whirl around to impale a chittering genlock rogue attempting unsuccessfully to flank him. Not on my watch, I think grimly. Part of me is flashing him an answering grin to show him I heard him and I'm listening – he thinks nobody ever listens to him, but I hear every word. Part of me is already sweeping through the rest of the darkspawn before us, my sword swinging on and on, moving ever forward, the sensation feeling like throwing myself against living, roaring, writing tide again and again. I have long since stopped hearing my own horrified angry screams. I am angry and horrified and frightened but I am filled with disgust too – every one of their faces glows with evil incarnate, darkness made flesh. They are an assault on the eye and the mind and the heart. Pure purgatory this is, and I feel like this night will never end. Deliriously I begin to imagine that maybe we have always been apart of it, as if we have somehow been caught in the Fade again by Sloth and have been fighting this same battle for four hundred years, wading through nightmares as visceral and thick as rancid syrup.

But even now, as I think it, part of me senses the archdemon approaching us across the city, the hypnotic pulse of its Call the pounding of a diseased supernatural heart that only I and Alistair and Riordan can hear…. And I know the end is coming.

One way or the other.


	2. Chapter 2

Legends all make a big to-do about the toughness of a dragon's hide, and armorers alike. And sure, for a leather I suppose drakeskin does its job as well as any other. (Give me a good thick plate armor any day, just don't tell Leliana I said so.) But the hardness of the hide has nothing to do with how hard it is to kill a dragon.

It's the quickness of them, fast as a racer snake after basking all afternoon in the hot summer sun. It's the jaws that bite and the claws that catch. There are no other Grey Wardens left alive to describe it, so the task falls to me – the insanity of seeing a creature that large move that fast, it can paralyze you, as sure as a mouse under the gaze of a viper.

That's without even mentioning the fire-breathing part.

But they are not unkillable. Heinous, staggering, but they die like any other thing. After twenty minutes on the battlefield after a fight that seemed to last twenty years, we have the wretched thing on its last legs. It bleeds black smoking blood from a hundred different wounds, more than half of them mortal to any other beast. Still it roared and stared us down, a terrible engine of destruction, some malicious brooding force which had been only waiting all this time for us to meet it. Waiting to snatch the one good thing I had left.

I would not allow it.

Without realizing what I was doing, I started towards the beast one last time, stalking with purpose as I gained speed. As soon as Alistair saw what I meant to do, he began to follow, running beside me. I stuck my foot out and he neatly tripped over it, tumbling to the stones in a clatter of armor. I looked over my shoulder long enough to see that he was unhurt by the fall, scrambling to his feet so as not to leave himself vulnerable to the darkspawn. His expression was one of pure childish insult and shock. No fair! that look said. It startled me into a laugh and I turned to run at the archdemon again.

 _"On my order, stay back!"_

I heard him scream my name behind me as I lifted my blades and the dragon reared its head back like a snake about to strike. Heat baked off it like a furnace.

I managed to jump up just as the beast's jaws cracked shut in the place that I'd most recently been, sounding like a series of heavy twigs beneath my feet snapping all at once. As I fell, I put all my considerable weight behind my daggers, driving them through the burgundy drakeskin, through the surprisingly thin and fragile skull of the thing, and into the twisted matter that passed for its brains. I sank them to the hilt and twisted as hard as I could, hoping for the best.

You see, it isn't really the toughness of a dragon's hide that is the deciding factor.

Location is everything.

The dragon whipped and shrieked in its death throes – only my grip on my daggers kept me abroad the beast, and at one point I narrowly missed being dashed between the archdemon's muscular jaw and the streets of Denerim. I rolled to the other side of its head and held on for dear life as the thing thrashed more wildly, then finally grew still and rolled over onto its side. I released my white-knuckle hold on my sword and dagger and rolled off of the thing's massive head, being sure to roll well and clear away in case it decided to bite one last time. I remembered the genlock's head, you see.

But it didn't. Its huge yellow eye began to glaze. Smoke curled from its silent nostrils in two charred black lines.

The archdemon was dead. And although I hadn't given myself a proper pat-down yet, I seemed to be alive.

I'd barely been able to register this fact when I found himself being scooped half off the ground, armor and all. Alistair was also alive, which I dazedly thought made us something of historical anomalies. I will admit, some hot secret part of me was jealous when he spent the night with Morrigan, but I have no doubt who possesses his heart. He hugged me to his chest like a drowning man, peppering hard, almost angry kisses across my face. He whispered to me whenever his lips weren't against my cheeks or forehead or lips. The remnants of the darkspawn horde could have fallen on us like wolves and we wouldn't have noticed.

"You're crazy, you're insane, I love you but you are _certifiable,_ do you know that?"

I grabbed the collar of his breastplate and pulled him close to meet my lips again. When I pulled away, I replied:

"What can I say? We do good work."


	3. Chapter 3

The hours that followed were a weary blur; I remember nothing but having the armor stripped from me by Alistair's gentle hands until there was nothing but a sweat-soaked tunic underneath, its original color almost completely obscured by darkspawn gore. I let myself be undressed like a child who has stayed up too late at a party and must be put to bed half-asleep. At one point Alistair swooped me up in his arms as if I weighed nothing, although I know from firsthand experience after wielding a sword and shield for hours, the strain must have been an agony. Relieved to not have to worry about anything so daunting as holding myself upright, I just melted against him and laid my cheek on the scratchy, filthy wool over his heart, listening to the fierce beat of it in his chest, the thrumming vibration of it against my temple. Alive. Not like Cailan, not like Duncan, not or Riordan, or any of the other poor bastards that had fought the archdemon before our age. We were the only survivors.

Eventually I opened my eyes and saw that we were alone, in a wing of Arl Eamon's estate where we had been quartered before. There was a deep stillness in the shadows of the room that told me it was long after midnight. A trio of candles flickered on the sidetable, fragrant beeswax rolling down their tapers like tears. As my eyes focused and adjusted to the dim light, I became mesmerized by their flicker.

"Hey, you're awake." Alistair walked to the bed from where he had silently entered through the side door and kneeled, taking my hand with no pretense or airs. He squeezed it and I squeezed back, feeling the calluses on his palm from the pommel of his sword. "You okay?" he asked, more softly.

I shifted my weight on the bed to turn towards him and felt every muscle scream in outraged protest. Apparently they'd all decided to stiffen and lock up at once while I was having my post-victory doze. My right eye was almost swelled shut, and I looked up at him through a squint.

"Other than feeling like my bruises have bruises, sure, I'm peachy." I sat up in minute increments and couldn't suppress a groan that caused Alistair to scowl with worry. "Just feel like I got stepped on by a dragon, that's all."

"Not to detract from your dashing heroics, but what in the name of Andraste's smoking knickers were you thinking?" He took the sting out of his accusation by brushing his fingertips gently down my scraped, battered jawline like it was made of porcelain.

I closed my eyes and felt a wan smile spread across my face. I opened them again and looked at him, really looked, to show how serious I was. I reached up and put my own hand on his cheek in return, feeling two day's worth of stubble there.

"I was thinking I love you, and you are my king, and I would spend the rest of my life wandering the Fade before I let anyone or any _thing_ take you away from me."

"You could have died," Alistair replied, his voice taking on a low insistent urgency, as if he was afraid to be overheard even with two huge oaken doors locked between us and the rest of the world. "What would I have done then? I can't rule without you. I don't even know how I'd get up in the morning and make toast without you."

It was just a joke, another one of his deflections, but I heard the plaintive truth in his words, and thought not for the first time that there was always a grain of truth in every jest he spoke. It made me think of how he was back when this all began, right after Duncan's death.

 _You want us to battle the archdemon by_ ourselves? _No Grey Warden has ever defeated a darkspawn horde without the armies of half a dozen nations at his back. And besides that… I don't know how._

Maybe he was right. Maybe he wouldn't be able to do this without me. But as far as that went, I'd never ask him to.

I leaned back onto the pillows and pulled him down with me. He went willingly enough, rolling over to the side of me so as not to jostle me as he sank down into the soft furs, cradling me in his arms. I savored the quiet closeness of him as I drew closer, slipping one hand up beneath the bottom edge of his doublet to palm the skin of his torso. It felt like rubbed velvet with steel underneath. A good analogy for him all around, I thought.

"Maker, I was so afraid for you," he whispered.

I met his lips and let the kiss linger before drawing back. "No need for fear now. It's over." I grinned wickedly. "My king."

"Ugh. Don't remind me." Alistair relaxed against the bed, into my arms, and I was taken out of the moment a bit by the non-too-subtle reminder that neither of us had had a bath yet and in close proximity, it was a little more fragrant than romantic.

"Don't take this the wrong way…" I wrinkled my nose theatrically.

Alistair burst out laughing. "Don't exactly smell like a flower, do I? Well I'll have you know, dear lady, that you're not exactly a bundle of freesia yourself this evening."

"I'm sorry I missed my morning bath, I was too busy saving the world." I sat up again, wincing. "Please tell me that there are baths somewhere in this castle. I'm tired of smelling like their blood. The coverlet and pillows will have to be changed as it is."

"That's why I was coming up to get you, actually." Alistair smirked at me like we hadn't just risked our lives earlier in the day and I fell in love with him all over again. "It's already been arranged. Think you can walk?"

"Pshaw. Try to stop me." I moved to swing my legs over the edge of the bed and attempted standing. I thought of my mother and smiled – the expression was both sweet and bitter. She would have loved you. She really would have. "I'm no Orlesian wallflower. Put a sword in my hand and I'll use it." So far, so good. I turned to catch Alistair watching me with that doe-eyed look Wynne is always accusing him of.

I flopped face-first back down on the bed with all the high drama I could muster in a state of exhaustion. "No. I can't walk. Carry me my lord, I'm too weak."

"Liar. You're a lot of things, but you're not that."

I rolled over onto my back. "Then carry me because I'm lazy."

Laughing, he got off the bed and lifted me up. I wrapped my arms around his neck and was able to ignore the fresh set of twinges the gesture brought on. I buried my face in his neck as he carried me into the adjacent room. As dirty as we both were, I knew how ticklish he was, and I couldn't resist swiping my tongue down the hollow of his throat in a wet line. He shuddered beneath my touch helplessly, and I let out a soft laugh.

I looked up into his face and grimaced. "Yuck. You really do need a bath too. I hope you were planning on joining in."

Maker bless the boy and protect the man, he turned scarlet from his chest to the roots of his hair. You would have thought I'd suggested we invite Zevran into our bed.

"Joining in?"

I stroked my fingertips across the nape of his neck. "Did I stutter? You're telling me a bath doesn't sound good to you too right about now?"

He swallowed. "No, I… it does. Very good." He laughed, and the sound had more than a twinge of nerves in it. "You know, I think this is the first time we've really had any time to ourselves since we first met?" He walked through the entrance to the bath and I immediately felt the wet humid weight of the hot water hit my face like a caress. I sighed in anticipatory pleasure and shifted until he let me down to stand on my own feet.

"Oh really? So what were all of those expeditions to 'gather firewood'? We probably brought back enough some nights to torch a village."

Alistair smiled back, a little mischief in his own expression now. "Just practice."

I took in the sight of the bath. It was massive and marble, glittering with condensation. Some kind of fragrant oil had been poured into the steaming water and the scent of it danced through the air. Braziers and candles lit the room. I narrowed my eyes when I saw what was floating on the surface of the water, then looked at him with amusement.

"Rose petals?"

"Well, they _are_ my weapon of choice."

"That's so unbelievably cheesy. How could I resist?" I stripped off my tunic, too aware of his eyes tracing the lines of my back as I stepped over the edge of the tub and eased into the hot water with a noise of pure relief. Attar of roses drifted up around my face, and I sank down until the water line was just below my nose, my hair pooling out on the surface of the water. We may have reeked of dragonfire and darkspawn blood, but the roses went a far way towards improving that.

I turned to look at Alistair and saw that he had already begun to remove his own undergarments, his cheeks flushed. I waggled my eyebrows at him until he looked up and caught me doing it.

He snorted, shaking his head. "Lecher."

I ducked beneath the surface to soak my hair, then lifted my face out of the water to talk as I wrung dirtied water from it, and splashed water across the aching muscles of my arms and shoulders and chest, washing them clean. "What's wrong with a girl appreciating the merchandise once she finally gets to take it out of the box?"

"Degenerate," he said, snickering despite himself as he climbed into the bath and ducked his own head, brushing the water back out of it with his fingertips until it stood up in wet cowlicks all over his skull.

"Such sweet things you say."

"Are you going to wash my back?" He batted his eyelashes at me.

"If you're nice. Can you be nice?"

He pulled me close to him again to prove it, and it was different this time – skin on skin, with no eyes watching us. Even in camp amongst friends, we had always been painfully aware of every rustling fur, every moan of pleasure, every escaped sigh. More than a handful of snarky remarks constantly reminded us that even in my tent, we were never truly alone. More than once I had buried my teeth in his shoulder to muffle my own cries, not willing to face Leliana's knowing smirk over the breakfast fire.

We had never been alone. But we were now.

And I intended to take advantage of it.


End file.
